A process for the conversion of paraffins to olefins involves passing a normal paraffin stream over a highly selective catalyst, where the normal paraffin is dehydrogenated to the corresponding mono-olefin. The dehydrogenation reaction is achieved under mild operating conditions, thereby minimizing the loss of feedstock.
The typical process involves the use of a radial flow reactor where a paraffin feedstock is contacted with a dehydrogenation catalyst under reaction conditions. The typical process involves dehydrogenating linear paraffins in the C7 to C11 range to produce olefins used as plasticizers, for dehydrogenating paraffins in the C10 to C14 range to produce linear olefins for the production of linear alkyl benzenes (LABs), and for dehydrogenating paraffins in the C12 to C17 range to produce detergent alcohols or olefin sulfonates.
The process is affected by reactor design, and processing costs can increase substantially if the catalyst is underutilized, the reactor is required to be shut down to reload catalyst, or operating conditions need to be significantly changed as the catalyst deactivates.